


the end came, and the end wore our face

by charleydear



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: it's not explicitly doctor/master but you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:35:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28541898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleydear/pseuds/charleydear
Summary: The Master knew it had finally come. The end.She remembered seeing this face. How could she forget? She had remembered the glimmers of hope, hidden under all the facade. And she, still not old enough even then, had seen love, and killed it. Too afraid.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	the end came, and the end wore our face

The Master knew it had finally come. The end.

She remembered the end, a long time ago. She had watched. A lifetime of self-sabotage ended at her own hand, and this time, for good. The Master had remembered how it felt, watching the life leave their future body, shot dead beneath them, lifeless, regenerations spent. 

The end of a glorious career, left to rot in the mud, on the edge of a black hole. 

It had its own kind of poetry to it, she'd suppose, if she ever thought about poetry. 

She remembered seeing this face. How could she forget? She had remembered the glimmers of hope, hidden under all the facade. And she, still not old enough even then, had seen love, and killed it. Too afraid. 

Now the Master was very old. 

Too old and tired to even be the Master anymore. "Missy" would suit better. 

Missy had seen her end, felt it quivering over the horizon, a hundred years left, maybe two, so she returned to the beginning. The very beginning. 

She laid in the red grasses, the fields of Arcadia, and she listened to the children playing. She listened to their laughs, and their cries. And if she listened very carefully, she heard the whispers of two young boys, close as can be, dreaming about what the future would bring. 

She travelled for a decade, thinking it a farewell tour. She leapt from planet to planet, and for once she did not interfere. She merely sat, and watched. The sound of the drums had faded some in the centuries before, but it crept closer to her ear with every breath. She sat, and she listened, and she began to understand. 

She knew the end was coming, so she returned to her beginning. The Doctor, always the Doctor. 

How to find the Doctor? One more scheme, villainy done just for him to foil. She let herself be caught, let him watch over her, let him imagine she was boiling beneath, the resignation a facade. She let them both wait as she remembered and repented, all the time knowing it would never be enough. Nature overgrowing nurture, but too little, too late. 

They always say that a time traveller should never see their own funeral. Missy had, and yet she understood- that death was not her funeral, this was. 

The never ending drums were her funeral march, the Doctor the only to mourn, one last stand, one last fight. The Cybermen, again, she remembered. She played her part in her last dance, waltzed through it all, bit down the fear. She fought because she had seen herself do it, so long ago, but she was running out of malice. She fought because she knew this was how it had to end. She was the Master, and she was destined to have a battlefield death.

The end came, and his name was the Master. 

And Missy died quietly, alone with a self she'd left behind so long ago, the flames of rage still burning in his eyes, the unflappable bravado. This was how it should end. Destroyed by her past, one last time. She watched as the Master raised his arm to shoot, remembered the feel of it in her hands, the sudden terror that burned the Master's throat, so rare. She smiled, and she let death take her like an old friend. 

Long though she had tried to find it, Missy still did not know what peace was. She died, and the drums rang on. Though she was no longer there to hear them, still they thundered eternal.

The Master stepped away from Missy's corpse, cold, unfathomably cold, and understood. The end had come, was coming, had always been coming. Would be coming for him, still.

**Author's Note:**

> dandywho is my tumblr; i mumble about doctor who for at least an hour a day


End file.
